Painter just crashed on me. While saving a big document. An important, big document. Because Painter can be really unstable, I save iteratively. All is not lost. But, since it crashed during a save, my last version of the illustration is toast.

This happens a lot. I always send along a crash report to Apple. Today, well, I decided to spice it up a bit by adding some exposition to the comments area of the bug report form.

Dear Apple,

If there is anything you can do to make Painter more stable, please, I beg of you, do it. You see, all the way back to version six or so, I’ve been using it. No matter the operating system, amount of raw computing power, or patience you throw at Painter, it still crashes sometimes. And, often, those crashes occur during saves (like right now, during the save of a file I worked on for eight hours)!

I realize it’s not your job to make Painter less buggy, but maybe you can yell at Corel a bit? A stern talking to, maybe?

Thanks!

Well, I went and succumbed to the peer pressure of starting a Twitter account. Thanks to Max Holyoke-Hirsch for reminding me that I was a Luddite, har. Now that I am on it, I played with my profile and set the Braaains! Threadless design that I did as a tiled background. I might do that here. I think it looks pretty spiffy:

I get bored with my blog theme once in a while. I really like it, but I am the sort who likes to swap stuff out in an OCD way. Note the new lettering for my name up there!

Drawing videos again. Each clocks in at about 30 minutes. Oh, and supply your own soundtrack. You don’t want to listen to my music!

Being silent makes them shorter. I’m not distracted by talking, so I actually finish this one at my normal speed. Apple TV quality video on Vimeo. Flash stuff here:

Bad Rabbits Part 01 from Ray Frenden on Vimeo.

Bad Rabbits 02 from Ray Frenden on Vimeo.

Completed image after the jump.

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Well, hello again!

I’ve been working sixteen to twenty hour days for a couple of weeks. Multiple snow, skate, surf, and clothing lines. Band merch. Logos. Lettering. An art book for Comicon.

Almost all of it is NDA, though. I’ve posted a few things to Flickr that are public and a ton more set to private. I really wish I could show the work. Whenever I have a slew of jobs strung together with little reprieve, I feel I do some of my best work. It’s the singular focus on work that helps me make better stuff. It can be a detriment to my personal life, though, as my overly patient wife can attest.

In the meantime, though, let me ask you guys. Would you rather have Twitter like updates, with anything and everything that hits my Flickr feed coming over here, or more well rounded, almost narrative, posts such as this one?

I’ve been trying to post only when I can show the beginning, middle, and end of a piece. Something with meat to it. But, I can see the counter argument. “Give it to us as it comes. Just update something!” That sort of thing.

Anyhow, how about some illustrations?

Family Force 5 decided to make some changes to the final art from my last post. They wanted some text added to the image. Not a problem. Well, not a problem except for the fact that I took down my notes incorrectly. I wrote down a song title instead of the album title. So, for your viewing pleasure, here are both versions. This is the song title version:

And here is the corrected version:

Luckily, this isn’t a common occurrence, har!

Lastly, here’s my next tee in progress for them:

I think I’m on board for one or two more.

I’m working on a few tee designs for the band Family Force 5. There’s a pretty ravenous fan base for these guys, so it’s a fun brand to work with.

I’m trying out a few new things with my work. Focusing on bolder line variances more akin to traditional work is the main impetus for change here.